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9/11’s Litany of Loss, Joined by Another Name

Leon Heyward emerged from the subway just as the second plane struck, piercing the south tower. As others fled, he helped evacuate disabled employees from 42 Broadway, where he worked for the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, and when the first tower fell, he was caught in the churning plume of contaminated dust and smoke.

Within months he started to feel sick. A father of two who prided himself on being fit, Mr. Heyward found himself overcome with fatigue. He had seizures; his memory slipped. Once, while working undercover as an inspector, he forgot where he was.

“It was hard seeing him go from being strong and muscular and running around to watching him sit there,” said his ex-wife, Monique Heyward.

Last October, after developing lymphoma, Mr. Heyward died at age 45 in the Bronx, where he was born and had formed one of the earliest rap groups. He became, officially, the latest casualty of the Sept. 11 terror attack, and just after 10 on a gusty, dreary Friday morning, the name Leon Bernard Heyward was read for the first time at ground zero as the nation paused again to remember its losses.

President Obama, marking his first Sept. 11 in the nation’s highest office, and the first lady, Michelle Obama, observed the first moment of silence outside the White House. The president later spoke at the Pentagon, where 184 people died. But the capital was momentarily startled when miscommunication over a routine Coast Guard exercise prompted an F.B.I. response and caused Reagan National Airport to briefly halt departures.

In New York, the intoning of victims’ names Friday was again the centerpiece of an annual rite that seemed to have retained its power despite the passage of time, with relatives crying through the rain and some still struggling to get the words out. In a nod to a new federal designation of Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, volunteers from organizations across the city joined relatives to read the names.

Family members were allowed to visit the site where the memorial pools — huge square voids that are to be lined with waterfalls — are only now beginning to take shape.

Relatives placed flowers in a round pool set up for the ceremony, some clutching framed photographs wrapped in plastic as protection from the rain. Four moments of silence were observed to mark the times when the two planes hit the towers and when each building fell.

A handful of politicians, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, took turns reading poems and addressing the few hundred family members assembled in Zuccotti Park on Liberty Street.

The addition of Mr. Heyward brought the list of names of World Trade Center victims to 2,752. Ms. Heyward, who remained close to Mr. Heyward after their divorce in 2001, said his inclusion was bittersweet for the family.

“In a way it’s great that he can be honored every year,” she said. But Ms. Heyward, who moved to North Carolina three years ago, also worried that the annual Sept. 11 ceremony would mean “reliving it every year,” which could prove difficult for her children, Saiydah, 18, and Leon, 22.

“Not a day went by without our speaking to him,” said Ms. Heyward, who added, only half in jest, that they started dating in Holy Cross Elementary School in the Bronx. “He was a great dad. Everything he did was for his kids.”

Photo

Leon Heyward

Mr. Heyward was known by many in the music world by another name, MC Sundance, a member of the Jazzy Five, one of the first rap groups to form in the South Bronx in the 1970s. He liked to work out and play basketball, and landed a job with the city.

After he fell ill, Mr. Heyward was forced to quit work and struggled to get by on disability payments. “He would just smile and watch the kids and he had no energy,” Ms. Heyward said. “He couldn’t remember very simple things. He would just nod his head.”

After Mr. Heyward died of lymphoma, New York City’s chief medical examiner classified his as a Sept. 11 death because he was exposed to the cloud of dust the day the towers fell.

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Although families of several New Yorkers who worked on the cleanup and later died have sought that designation, only one other name has been added to the list because of dust-related illness.

That person, Felicia Dunn-Jones, a lawyer whose office was a block from the trade center, died in 2002. The medical examiner attributed her death, in part, to sarcoidosis, which produces microscopic lumps called granulomas on the lungs and other organs.

“One of the criteria is that you have to have been there when the towers came down,” said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner. “Every case can be different. We’ll always review a case. We will to this day.”

Ms. Dunn-Jones’s family was awarded $2.6 million from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which is now closed.

It is unclear whether Mr. Heyward’s family might be eligible for any compensation; a bill is pending before Congress that would reopen the fund with up to $8.4 billion for those who were injured at ground zero.

His relatives have hired a lawyer to explore their options. “I don’t want any more than what my family is entitled to,” Ms. Heyward said.

After the planes struck the towers, Mr. Heyward’s boss, Hector Serrano, gave Mr. Heyward his city car and told him to drive it out of the area. “I figured he would immediately evacuate, but a half hour later I got a call that he was still standing by, waiting for further instructions,” said Mr. Serrano, who is now an assistant commissioner of the City of New York Business Integrity Commission.

“We happened to get a couple of disabled people out of the building,” he said. “Leon was successful in getting these people out. I credit him for that — for not leaving the area. He was the kind of person you could always count on. Any time you needed something done, he would follow through.”

Mr. Heyward’s sister Leona Hull had planned to represent her brother at the ceremony Friday. But when she woke up, she felt too shaky, and stayed at home in the Bronx, where she watched his name — mispronounced as “Lennon” — read for the first time on television.

“It was too emotional for me,” said Ms. Hull, a 57-year-old dance teacher, in a phone interview shortly after his name was read. “There’s no closure right now. October will be a year.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: 9/11’s Litany of Loss, Joined by One More Name. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe